Andrew is currently taking a Sabbatical from blogging. You can read his past blog posts below. Author Profile: Andrew Ainsworth
Andrew is currently taking a Sabbatical from blogging. You can read his past blog posts below. Author Archive for Andrew Ainsworth
This could be the most meaningful six minutes and 44 seconds that you spend today.
6 Comments
As Mormons, we are constantly taught and reminded that obedience brings happiness. So what are we to conclude when we’re obedient but still aren’t happy?
When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
(1 Cor. 13:11.)
As I’ve grown older, the things I’ve unlearned about God are just as significant to me as the things I’ve learned about Him. In fact, the God I believed in as a child is almost unrecognizable to me now.
What do Mormons and Muslims have in common? A lot more than you might think. And a popular sitcom about Muslims living in a small Canadian prairie town offers Mormons good suggestions about how best to handle being misunderstood and sometimes mistreated by the “outside world”.
Let us know what insights, testimonies, and quotable quotes grabbed your attention or touched your heart today as General Conference progresses. Live! In real time!
Is it just me or are the Saturday sessions usually better than the Sunday ones? I’ve long thought the best talks are “front-loaded” into the Saturday session to reward those dedicated souls who are willing to give up both their Saturday as well as their Sunday to participate in eight to ten hour hours of conference over the weekend.
Here are the things I’m most eager to see and hear in this upcoming conference:
In my last post, I noted that something peculiar is going on when it comes to Utah’s depression numbers. Utah has the highest percentage of population reporting depression, and oddly, Utah’s depression numbers can’t seem to be explained by several correlations that tend to explain depression numbers in other states. That suggests to me that Utah’s higher depression numbers are caused by something peculiar to Utah. In this post, I take a look at three peculiar theories about what’s behind Utah’s depression numbers, which I like to call the “Shrunken Gene Pool Theory,” the “Lack of Alcoholic Self-Medication Theory,” and “Too Many Toddlers Syndrome.”
A recent news article cites a study that portrays Utah as the most depressed state in the U.S. The article suggests Mormon culture is at least partly to blame for Utahns’ depression, and features photos of a pill bottle and a depressed-looking woman superimposed over the Salt Lake temple.
A few months ago, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting in which I discussed how studying other religious faiths and their scriptures had enriched my life. When the meeting was over, a couple approached me and said they wanted a copy of the talk to give their daughter because she described herself as a “Buddhist Mormon.” The couple said their daughter couldn’t decide whether to be a Buddhist or a Mormon, so she was trying to be both.
At a recent General Conference, Elder Oaks reiterated the Book of Mormon prophecy that “the Lord will eventually cause the inspired teachings He has given to His children in various nations to be brought forth for the benefit of all people.” [1] So inquiring minds may want to know: when, where, and how will God’s words to “all nations” be brought forth and gathered? Fortunately, I just happen to have all the answers. 
Mormons tend to think of the Restoration as a discrete series of events that began with the First Vision and concluded with the Martyrdom. Because we tend to view the Restoration as something that has already occurred, we don’t seem to talk much about whether there is something more we can and should be doing to complete it. However, there is an aspect of the Restoration that is unfinished, and which seems to be largely overlooked.
Sometimes I recall nuggets of spiritual wisdom but cannot remember when or where I picked them up. One in particular has increasingly taken on new meanings for me as I’ve wrestled with some of life’s tougher questions. You might call it the “Parable of the Elephant.” This is how it goes, as best I remember, with a few adaptations of my own:
There seem to be a number of disaffected Mormons lurking the Bloggernacle these days.
I am not one of them.
Here is why.
When it comes to Church growth, the Church sets high expectations for itself. Likening the Church to that scriptural stone that rolls forth to fill the whole earth, Church members may expect to see exponential Church growth, with significant year-over-year gains in the number of convert baptisms. However, over the past several years, the number of annual convert baptisms has actually dipped and plateaued somewhat, corresponding in part with a decrease in the number of full-time missionaries. Moreover, retention of new converts remains a challenge, as we are often reminded by Church leaders. In this situation, it is natural for Mormons to consider possible ways to improve the Church’s missionary program to increase the number of genuine converts to the Church.
The mission in which my stake is located is currently testing a pilot program that hearkens back to a familiar Book of Mormon story about a man named Ammon who wanted to build a bridge between two long estranged peoples, one of which was completely unfamiliar with the Gospel. Setting aside the direct proselytizing approach to missionary work, Ammon embarked on a mission of simple Christian service that inspired thousands who were previously considered the most unlikely potential converts to join the Church. If every stake and ward in the Church were to adopt Ammon’s approach to missionary work by conducting a wide-spread campaign of consistent, meaningful, no-strings-attached community service, could the Church experience the same miraculous growth that occurred in Ammon’s day?
It’s been a few months since I first came out to my family and friends. I’d been living a secret double life for too long, and I couldn’t stand the duplicity any longer. As I’ve continued to come out to more friends, I’ve learned I have to be careful and selective about when and to whom I reveal my secret. It makes some people feel awkward and uncomfortable when I tell them about it; others don’t know what to say and simply stare at the ground or abruptly change the subject.
Read the Deseret News article here.
The article notes: “At age 80, President Monson is one of the youngest men to become church president in the past quarter century. President Hinckley was 84, and Presidents Howard W. Hunter and Ezra Taft Benson were 86. President Spencer W. Kimball became president Dec. 30, 1973, at the age of 78.”
With Eyring and Uchtdorf as two of the younger members of the Quorum of the Twelve, the new First Presidency is one of the younger ones we’ve had in quite some time. Uchtdorf’s inclusion in the First Presidency also has obvious significance because he is a native of Germany.
There are a lot of myths both inside and outside Mormondom about the LDS claim to be the “one true Church.” That claim is difficult for people of other faiths to accept for obvious reasons. But it may also be difficult for many Mormons to reconcile that claim with their belief in a just and merciful God who loves all his children. I do not expect it will ever be “easy” to accept the “one true Church” claim. However, I think Church members sometimes make it more difficult to accept by drawing implications from the “one true Church” claim that do not necessarily follow from it.
In order to correctly understand what the “one true Church” claim truly means, we first need to understand what it does not mean. The following is my attempt to bust the myths surrounding the “one true Church” claim and its companion doctrines, the Apostasy and Restoration, using the words of Church leaders and Church publications.
In my view, the needed changes in Mormon culture do not require Church members to depart from their leaders’ counsel. To the contrary, I believe the most needed changes in Mormon culture will occur when Church members “catch up” with what the General Authorities have already told them. In my opinion, one of the most needed changes in Mormon culture is to eliminate Church members’ tendency to elevate the Church, its leaders, and its doctrines to a mythical state of perfection and completeness.
The following is a list of ten things I believe every Mormon needs to know to avoid developing unreasonable expectations about the Church, its doctrine, and its leaders. You could consider this cocktail of established principles a proposed vaccine for inoculating the Saints from becoming disillusioned by just about any difficult or controversial information about the Church.
